I Prayed for a Murim Reincarnation, But I Was Born as the Youngest Imperial Prince - Chapter 1

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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Chapter 1
Looking back, on the day it all began, Kim Seon-woo was grilling meat and drinking soju with his friend Lee Jun, just the two of them.
They had both pushed right up to the limit of their tolerance, and by that point, they were barely sipping their drinks, just rambling about this and that.
That was when the news playing on the restaurant’s TV caught their attention.
[…Therefore, regarding the Villa King, Mr. A, who was indicted on charges of lease fraud, the High Court has handed down a verdict of not guilty.]
“Are you fucking kidding me? How does that make any sense? How is he not guilty? One of the victims even committed suicide! The survivors had their entire lives ruined, too.”
As Seon-woo spat out his fury, his friend Jun wore a conflicted expression.
“Well, he’s obviously liable for civil damages, but whether it legally constitutes criminal fraud was a bit of an ambiguous case from the start.”
“No way. Someone died, and over a hundred people lost their money. It’s even more if you count their families. And yet he’s innocent?”
Seon-woo was a dirt-spoon working at a small-to-medium enterprise.
On the other hand, Lee Jun, a childhood friend he’d hung out with for so long they were practically brothers, was a gold-spoon lawyer.
And a highly successful one at that.
Honestly, a wealth gap like this was usually enough to break a friendship, but strangely, neither of them ever drifted apart.
While Seon-woo might occasionally feel envious of Jun’s success, he never pushed him away for showing off.
Jun knew Seon-woo was poor and lacked an elite academic background, but he never kept his distance or acted like Seon-woo wasn’t on his level.
Even though their circumstances were completely different, they shared a deep understanding—a bizarre bond that had lasted for nearly thirty years.
But friendship was friendship, and whenever a case like this became the topic of conversation, their perspectives were poles apart.
“Seriously, what is wrong with this country? I’ve never once seen the guilty get properly punished. Especially with fraud, why can’t they just hand down actual sentences? What did those fucking judges even take under the table to rule like that?”
“Well, for starters, it’s not the judges; the laws passed by the National Assembly are just framed that way.”
“Then they should change the law! That’s what a proper country does, damn it. If that crypto scammer had been tried in Korea, he probably would’ve gotten preferential treatment as a former official and ended up with probation. And that voice phishing bastard was never even caught. Sledge, poor Yeong-seok.”
Watching the TV brought Seon-woo’s rage right back to the surface.
‘Damn it, they never did catch the person who targeted my late mother with that voice phishing scam.’
The money was never recovered, and the culprit was never found.
To this day, he couldn’t shake the thought that the shock of it had caused his mother to pass away much sooner than she should have.
And that wasn’t all.
Though they weren’t quite as close as he was with Jun sitting right in front of him, his good friend Yeong-seok had committed suicide after falling victim to lease fraud.
Going to the funeral and seeing Yeong-seok’s mother looking completely hollowed out had left his chest feeling unbearably heavy.
Jun didn’t try to deny Seon-woo’s grievances.
“Well, honestly, if you ask me whether current Korean law aligns with actual justice, my personal answer would also be no.”
In law school, professors and graduate students churned out paper after paper debating whether strict punishment works, or how correctionism fits into the picture.
They droned on about civil law versus common law.
But to people like his friend Seon-woo, what did those flashy legal theories matter?
‘What matters to them is whether the state actually protects them from wicked people and criminals. If it can’t even do that, then whether justice is served or proper compensation is made is what truly counts.’
In that regard, as someone working in the legal profession, he had nothing to say.
As the top graduate of his law school, he had plenty of theories to spout about social utility and statistical trends, but none of that would ever satisfy his friend.
So, he simply refilled Seon-woo’s empty glass with soju.
Seon-woo’s tirade continued.
Although he had narrowly avoided falling victim to lease fraud himself, with a bit of bad luck, he could have easily been one of those casualties.
“Anyway, those politicians, the way I see it, they only keep the laws weak because they’re terrified of getting caught and punished for their own crimes.”
“Haha, maybe so.”
“And the judges refusing to tighten sentencing guidelines? Isn’t that just because they’ve got guilty consciences too?”
“Personally, I think half of it is just conservatism, and the other half is being too busy to find the motivation. There’s also the social cost of incarceration to consider.”
Jun offered a bitter smile while defending his industry.
Was that really all there was to it?
Perhaps he was the one lying to himself right now.
“Ha, those folks who retire and make a absolute killing using their former titles—if they don’t fix stuff like this, isn’t it a straight-up dereliction of duty?”
“I’ve got no defense for that.”
“Ha! They say a schoolhouse dog can recite poetry after three years. Look at me, actually holding my own in an argument with a lawyer.”
“Haha, you’ve always been pretty smart, to be fair.”
“Oh, please. Coming from the top of the class and a hotshot lawyer, that doesn’t even feel like a compliment.”
With that, the two clinked their glasses together.
Meanwhile, another infuriating news segment flickered across the screen.
“Regarding the failure of the recent international event, the involved departments continue to do nothing but bicker over who is to blame, while no actual audit plans have even been scheduled…”
“Look at… look at those tax thieves.”
“Hmm… That one definitely smells like massive embezzlement.”
“I mean, what did they even spend all that cash on? Wait, that public restroom cost ten billion won? Did they make the toilets out of solid gold?”
Seon-woo’s voice spiked with indignation.
“Hey, keep it down. You’re bothering the other tables.”
“Ahem. Anyway, people like that deserve to have their heads chopped off. Man, if I were a peerless master, those bastards would just…”
“Are we talking about martial arts novels again?”
“What’s wrong with martial arts? There’s righteousness and chivalry in those stories! A protagonist with peerless martial arts punishing the villains who oppress innocent civilians—that’s true justice.”
Jun let out a chuckle at Seon-woo’s hymn to the pugilistic world.
“I don’t know. Does a system that relies on private vengeance through individual force really work out well? I agree that the current Korean judicial system has plenty of flaws, but if a true martial world actually existed, I doubt it’d be any better than Korea.”
“What? Are you seriously dissing my martial world right now?”
Seon-woo barked back, but since he wasn’t genuinely angry, Jun kept teasing him with a grin.
“Heh, I make my living off the law, remember? If you analyze the martial world seriously, it’s a deeply dysfunctional place. Aren’t those martial masters basically just thugs extorting innocent civilians with brute force?”
“That’s just the Unorthodox Factions or the wicked sects. The proper Orthodox Factions don’t do that.”
“Really? Didn’t the last novel you recommended feature Shaolin and Wudang as the most corrupt of them all?”
“Damn it. Why did I have to recommend that specific one?”
This time, Seon-woo could only smack his lips in defeat.
“If you love the martial world that much, do you want to try going there?”
“Ha, how exactly are you going to send me? What, are you some local deity disguised as my friend?”
“Not quite, but I bought a souvenir to give you when I went to China recently.”
“What is it?”
Jun rummaged through his bag and pulled out a small box.
When he opened it, inside was something resembling a shriveled, dried-up bird’s claw.
“They say this hand grants three wishes.”
“What? A Monkey’s Paw made in China? Wow, I’m sober now. There’s no way.”
“A monkey’s paw? No, they said it’s a dragon’s hand. A dragon haaand~.”
They kept up the banter, but the reality was that both of them were quite drunk.
Because of that, this supposed dragon’s hand actually started to look somewhat plausible.
To be exact, it looked like ‘a fun little joke worth trying out.’
“Alright, should we make a wish then? How does it work?”
“Here, first, we grip it like this.”
The two of them grasped the dragon’s hand together.
“Let’s see. For the first wish: please send us to a martial world where martial arts actually exist. That’s it, right?”
“Yeah, that’s right.”
Nothing happened.
“What do you want for the second wish?”
“Give me the talent to master peerless martial arts. You can’t go without that, right?”
What would be the point of reincarnating as random Civilian A, only to get crushed by the times and die?
“True, that’s a solid second wish. Then what’s the third and final one?”
“Hmm, if possible, let me be born into a prestigious family where I can gain access to peerless martial arts, spiritual elixirs, and a great master. That’s the ultimate wish. Even with talent, if you’re born a dirt-spoon, it’s a long, brutal road ahead. Protagonists always find a way to overcome it, sure, but being born into a good spot from the get-go is way better.”
“Heh, true. If you’re reborn, make sure you’re a gold-spoon.”
“Hey, are you flexing your gold-spoon status right now?”
“No way. I mean, I’d want to be a gold-spoon again too. Wait, what?”
Just as they were trading jokes, a sudden light erupted from the dragon’s hand they were holding.
The exact moment the instinct that something had gone horribly wrong flashed through his mind, a red Ferrari smashed through the restaurant window and plowed straight into them.
* * *
And when he regained consciousness, Seon-woo had become a newborn baby.
‘Wait, what on earth is this?’
By all appearances, it seemed he had only recently been born.
But was it even normal for a newborn baby to retain memories of a past life like this?
His body was that of an infant, but his soul belonged to a man in his thirties who had just been run over by a Ferrari.
Well, at least he hadn’t hit his forties yet.
In terms of actual years, he had still been in his prime.
‘No, wait. There’s no point in counting that anymore, is there? I’m a fresh, youthful youth again…’
So sleepy.
Perhaps because he was a baby, he felt incredibly drowsy.
‘First of all, it seems certain that I was born into a prestigious family.’
Even a cursory glance at the crib he was lying in revealed it to be astronomically luxurious, and the room itself was extraordinary.
If so, had he been granted the martial talent as well?
Did that Chinese-made monkey’s paw—no, dragon’s hand—actually grant those wishes?
Could it be?
‘Before that, is this actually a martial world with martial arts?’
He couldn’t tell yet.
For now, he just needed to sleep well, eat well, and grow well.
He could always figure out what kind of world and what kind of family he had been born into as he grew up.
“XXXXX.”
The people taking care of him were speaking, but it was an unfamiliar language.
Evidently, the dragon’s hand hadn’t seen fit to grant him the local dialect.
Then again, he hadn’t explicitly asked for that in his wishes.
It would be fine.
Babies learn languages quickly anyway.
‘I wonder if Jun is okay.’
He didn’t know if the Ferrari had only hit him, or if it had struck Jun as well.
The fact that they were both holding the dragon’s hand at that moment left an unsettling feeling in his chest.
Unlike him, Jun actually had a family who would grieve for him.
Still, there was nothing he could do about it in the body of a newborn.
Once he grew up, he would have to look around and see if Jun had reincarnated along with him.
* * *
Perhaps due to the physical limitations of an infant’s body, even though he considered himself to possess the consciousness of his past life, his waking hours were brief, and his thoughts remained fragmentary.
It felt as though his physical brain simply couldn’t handle the cognitive capacity of his soul.
Every time he woke up from a short nap, his body seemed to have shot up in size.
It appeared that he only woke up with full awareness of his past life for brief intervals, spending the vast majority of his time acting like a completely normal infant.
However, as time flowed on, he eventually reached the point where he could toddle around on his own two feet.
Whether by coincidence or destiny, he was given the name Seon-woo in this new life as well.
By the time he reached this stage, even if he couldn’t speak fluently yet, he could understand what others were saying to a certain extent.
In truth, this wasn’t a level of linguistic ability a child his age should possess, but likely due to the influence of his past-life memories, his language acquisition was incredibly rapid.
Gradually, the periods he spent awake with a clear, conscious memory of his past life grew longer.
As a result, Seon-woo managed to confirm one crucial fact.
The clan he had been born into wasn’t just a regular prestigious family.
Good grief.
As it turned out, it was none other than the Imperial Family.
‘No wonder. Everything was so ridiculously lavish.’
Even assuming the dragon’s hand had granted his wish to be born into the martial world, it would have been difficult to achieve this level of luxury even if he had been born into a clan like the Namgung Clan.
The Imperial Family.
Once he realized that the term used to address him was ‘Imperial Prince,’ several pieces of the puzzle clicked into place.
Oddly enough, there were no eunuchs.
‘Of course, cutting that off is a pretty barbaric practice, but still…’
Judging by the fact that his surroundings were filled entirely with palace maids and lacked any castrated men, this place didn’t seem to be the conventional Chinese imperial court he knew.
To begin with, the nation’s name itself was the ‘Ryong’ Empire.
It seemed people usually referred to it as the Great Ryong Empire.
Tang, Song, Ming.
Instead of names like those, it was Ryong.
‘Since I loved martial arts novels, I studied Chinese history quite a bit, and I’m absolutely certain a name like this never existed.’
In the first place, was the continent he was currently born on even the Central Plains?
It was the martial world, right?
It had to be.
There was one more strange detail.
A translucent bead was embedded right in his chest.
‘They call this a dragon pearl, but is that for real?’
But aren’t dragon pearls something only actual dragons possess?
Am I a dragon?
Then again, aside from ‘Imperial Prince,’ there were times when people referred to him as the ‘Dragon’s Descendant.’
Could it be that this country genuinely believed dragon blood flowed through the veins of the imperial family?
‘I think the Goryeo Dynasty also referred to Wang Geon’s lineage as the dragon’s descendants… but that didn’t mean the King of Goryeo had a clear bead stuck in his chest.’
Even so, he was a member of royalty.
Beyond a gold spoon, was he a dragon spoon?
‘Hmm, no. Let’s not get ahead of ourselves.’
By that same token, royalty were precisely the kinds of people who could get wiped out in a single stroke if they got tangled up in some botched treason plot.
From what he could gather, it seemed he had four older brothers above him, so he needed to be careful.
But looking at it from another angle, as long as he didn’t show any foolish ambition and kept a reasonably low profile…
‘Heh, at the very least, the issue of making a living is completely solved. No, even that’s being too humble. I’m completely liberated from financial worries.’
Surely this wasn’t an empire on the brink of collapse, with rebel armies swarming all over the place, right?
Seon-woo had worried about that aspect as well, but observing his surroundings closely, it appeared that the court’s authority remained rock-solid for the time being. For now, that meant everything was fine.
‘As expected, did the dragon’s hand really grant my wishes?’
If so, two more things still needed to be accounted for.
It was too early to test his talent with this young body, so he needed to check if martial arts actually existed first.
To state the conclusion…
……
They really did.
This place was, without a doubt, the martial world.

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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